Chapter
XXXII.—Empedocles Increased the Absurdity of Pythagoras by
Developing the Posthumous Change of Men into Various
Animals.

But the fact is, Empedocles, who used to dream that he was a god, and on that account, I
suppose, disdained to have it thought that he had ever before been
merely some hero, declares in so many words: “I once was Thamnus,
and a fish.” Why not rather a melon, seeing that he was such a
fool; or a cameleon, for his inflated brag? It was, no doubt, as a fish
(and a queer one too!) that he escaped the corruption of some obscure
grave, when he preferred being roasted by a plunge into Ætna;
after which accomplishment there was an end for ever to his μετενσωμάτωσις
or putting himself into another body—(fit only now for) a
light dish after the roast-meat. At this point, therefore, we must
likewise contend against that still more monstrous presumption, that in
the course of the transmigration beasts pass from human beings, and
human beings from beasts. Let (Empedocles’) Thamnuses alone. Our
slight notice of them in passing will be quite enough: (to dwell on
them longer will inconvenience us,) lest we should be obliged to have
recourse to raillery and laughter instead of serious instruction. Now
our position is this: that the human soul cannot by any means at all be
transferred to beasts, even when they are supposed to originate,
according to the philosophers, out of the substances of the elements.
Now let us suppose that the soul is either fire, or water, or blood, or
spirit, or air, or light; we must not forget that all the animals in
their several kinds have properties which are opposed to the respective
elements. There are the cold animals which are opposed to
fire—water-snakes, lizards, salamanders, and what things soever
are produced out of the rival element of water. In like manner, those
creatures are opposite to water which are in their nature dry and
sapless; indeed, locusts, butterflies, and chameleons rejoice in
droughts. So, again, such creatures are opposed to blood which have
none of its purple hue, such as snails, worms, and most of the fishy
tribes. Then opposed to spirit are those creatures which seem to have
no respiration, being unfurnished with lungs and windpipes, such as
gnats, ants, moths, and minute things of this sort. Opposed, moreover,
to air are those creatures which always live under ground and under
water, and never imbibe air—things of which you are more
acquainted with the existence than with the names. Then opposed to
light are those things which are either wholly blind, or possess eyes
for the darkness only, such as moles, bats, and owls. These examples
(have I adduced), that I might illustrate my subject from clear and
palpable natures. But even if I could take in my hand the
“atoms” of Epicurus, or if my eye could see the
“numbers” of Pythagoras, or if my foot could stumble
against the “ideas” of Plato, or if I could lay hold of the
“entelechies” of Aristotle, the chances would be, that even
in these (impalpable) classes I should find such animals as I must
oppose to one another on the ground of their contrariety. For I
maintain that, of whichsoever of the before-mentioned natures the human
soul is composed, it would not have been possible for it to pass for
new forms into animals so contrary to each of the separate natures, and
to bestow an origin by its passage on those beings, from which it would
have to be excluded and rejected rather than to be admitted and
received, by reason of that original contrariety which we have supposed
it to possess,[1] and which commits
the bodily substance receiving it to an interminable strife; and then
again by reason of the subsequent contrariety, which results from the
development inseparable from each several nature. Now it is on quite
different conditions[2] that the soul of
man has had assigned to it (in individual bodies[3]) its abode, and aliment, and order, and
sensation, and affection, and sexual intercourse, and procreation of
children; also (on different conditions has it, in individual bodies,
received especial) dispositions, as well as duties to fulfil, likings,
dislikes, vices, desires, pleasures, maladies, remedies—in short,
its own modes of living, its own outlets of death. How, then, shall
that (human) soul which cleaves to the earth, and is unable without
alarm to survey any great height, or any considerable depth, and which
is also fatigued if it mounts many steps, and is suffocated if it is
submerged in a fish-pond,—(how, I say, shall a soul which is
beset with such weaknesses) mount up at some future stage into the air
in an eagle, or plunge into the sea in an eel? How, again, shall
it, after being nourished with generous and delicate as well as
exquisite viands, feed deliberately on, I will not say husks, but even
on thorns, and the wild fare of bitter leaves, and beasts of the
dung-hill, and poisonous worms, if it has to migrate into a goat or
into a quail?—nay, it may be, feed on carrion, even on human
corpses in some bear or lion? But how indeed (shall it stoop to this),
when it remembers its own (nature and dignity)? In the same way, you
may submit all other instances to this criterion of incongruity, and so
save us from lingering over the distinct consideration of each of them
in turn. Now, whatever may
be the measure and whatever the mode of the human soul, (the question
is forced upon us,) what it will do in far larger animals, or in very
diminutive ones? It must needs be, that every individual body of
whatever size is filled up by the soul, and that the soul is entirely
covered by the body. How, therefore, shall a man’s soul fill an
elephant? How, likewise, shall it be contracted within a gnat? If
it be so enormously extended or contracted, it will no doubt be exposed
to peril. And this induces me to ask another question: If the soul is
by no means capable of this kind of migration into animals, which are
not fitted for its reception, either by the habits of their bodies or
the other laws of their being, will it then undergo a change according
to the properties of various animals, and be adapted to their life,
notwithstanding its contrariety to human life—having, in fact,
become contrary to its human self by reason of its utter change? Now
the truth is, if it undergoes such a transformation, and loses what it
once was, the human soul will not be what it was; and if it ceases to
be its former self, the metensomatosis, or adaptation of some
other body, comes to nought, and is not of course to be ascribed to the
soul which will cease to exist, on the supposition of its complete
change. For only then can a soul be said to experience this process of
the metensomatosis, when it undergoes it by remaining
unchanged in its own (primitive) condition. Since, therefore, the soul
does not admit of change, lest it should cease to retain its identity;
and yet is unable to remain unchanged in its original state, because it
fails then to receive contrary (bodies),—I still want to know
some credible reason to justify such a transformation as we are
discussing. For although some men are compared to the beasts because of
their character, disposition, and pursuits (since even God says,
“Man is like the beasts that perish”[4]), it does not on this account follow that
rapacious persons become kites, lewd persons dogs, ill-tempered ones
panthers, good men sheep, talkative ones swallows, and chaste men
doves, as if the selfsame substance of the soul everywhere repeated its
own nature in the properties of the animals (into which it passed).
Besides, a substance is one thing, and the nature of that substance is
another thing; inasmuch as the substance is the special property of one
given thing, whereas the nature thereof may possibly belong to many
things. Take an example or two. A stone or a piece of iron is the
substance: the hardness of the stone and the iron is the nature of the
substance. Their hardness combines objects by a common quality; their
substances keep them separate. Then, again, there is softness in
wool, and softness in a feather: their natural qualities are alike,
(and put them on a par;) their substantial qualities are not alike,
(and keep them distinct.) Thus, if a man likewise be designated a wild
beast or a harmless one, there is not for all that an identity of soul.
Now the similarity of nature is even then observed, when dissimilarity
of substance is most conspicuous: for, by the very fact of your judging
that a man resembles a beast, you confess that their soul is not
identical; for you say that they resemble each other, not that
they are the same. This is also the meaning of the word of God
(which we have just quoted): it likens man to the beasts in nature, but
not in substance. Besides, God would not have actually made such a
comment as this concerning man, if He had known him to be in substance
only bestial.